At 31 weeks, I’m beginning to think “the honeymoon is over” as they say. The past few days have not been great. It’s been at least 48 hours since I thought “I’m so comfortable right now.” I’m entering a phase of pregnancy that I’ve read a lot about – the “I WILL BE PREGNANT FOREVER, THIS IS JUST MY LIFE NOW” phase.

The books’ advice is always that there has never been a woman in all time that has been pregnant forever, but that doesn’t make me feel better.

Moms – what was your favorite part about physically being pregnant? My husband has advised that I should enjoy these last couple of months, but I’m running out of things to appreciate. Baby bump bucket list in the comments – go!

We took a little one day breastfeeding class and I was really surprised at how much confidence I got from just a couple of hours of teaching. I know that my mom had inverted nipples and I’m pretty sure I do too, but I learned all kinds of strategies to make it work. At our hospital, the breastfeeding class was free if you took the basic childbirth class & tour, plus it was literally just two hours of a Saturday. I highly recommend going to one if you’re expecting. Pictures and videos made it really easy to learn what a perfect latch looks like, and practicing positions with dolls was surprisingly helpful too, especially because nurses were there to guide and correct you. It was kind of like a weird yoga class.

I actually felt so confident after this class that I had a dream about nursing my newborn with textbook perfection – but that’s not what was really exciting about this dream.

I’ve officially had my FIRST EVER gender-prediction dream! I’ve been hoping to have one, I know that’s kind of silly. But in all my baby dreams, the gender is always nondescript, and you hear stories of moms dreaming correctly of their baby’s gender. So I wanted in!

Drum roll – mama’s dream says IT’S A BOY.

Still gotta wait 9 weeks to find out for sure though. Also, it wasn’t a very realistic dream. I had the baby in my sleep at home and he was HUGE. And since it was the weekend we decided to wait until Monday to go to the hospital. Also he didn’t have an umbilical cord. I’m pretty sure non of those things will come true. Not sure if that changes how much stock you put in the gender prediction.

PS: Polar bears give birth while hibernating. The baby starts nursing and later the mama wakes up and is like “Oh hai baby. You’re outside of me now. Good baby.” I have long said that this is my birth plan – which is probably why I dreamed it that way.

I also had my first “monster baby” dream. We’ve started taking Bradley Method classes – more on that in another post. That’s sort of what inspired the title of this post. The Bradley Method strengthens the three Bs – which are not Breastfeeding, Baby, and Birth, so consider this post spoiler-free. ANYWAY we talked about dreams in class and they said it was common for mothers to dream that their baby is part-monster or part-animal – the most common dream being that their newborn baby is part-cat. I thought to myself that I would love a part-cat baby!

Which is why my nightmare was not about a cat baby. No, my baby was part bee.

Thanks, internet. You never disappoint.

So yeah. I still loved my baby bee, but I was definitely afraid of them. They had a stinger. So I mostly kept it in it’s little hospital bed and banned all visitors because…yeah.

Finally, there has been a birth! Husband’s brother just had a little baby girl four days ago. We’ve been to see and hold her. It’s all very weird, being pregnant and experiencing another birth. It’s kind of like being in the middle of running a marathon when you get a call saying “Hey! So and so just crossed the finish line!” and you’re like “That’s…*pant*…. great…. *pant*” I am super happy for them, and the baby is super cute, but I’m soooo tired. And like I said, I’m going to be pregnant forever. And my baby might be part bee.

It’s also very strange to see a birth that’s extremely different than the one you have “planned.” I know you can’t really “plan” a birth, and crazy stuff happens all the time, but we’ve decided to go for natural for a number of reasons. Number one being that since it was so hard to get pregnant, I’m hyper-aware that this might be our only baby. Ever. I don’t want to wonder what trying natural would have been like, and let’s face it: I’ve experienced a lot of the medical side. I know what anesthesia feels like, and thanks to my kidney stones I know what birth pain medication feels like too. I’m pretty sure that I won’t spend time wondering what a medicated birth would be like.

Plus, we couldn’t get pregnant naturally, so giving birth naturally feels like it will kind of make up for that. Real talk: the erm, “traditional” way of getting pregnant is MUCH more enjoyable than getting an IUI.

Anyway, it was strange. She gave birth at the same hospital I plan to, so it was kind of like getting a sneak peek at what to expect. But still very different. My mind was cranking away a mile a minute while we were there, checking out every detail and trying to imagine myself there. I still don’t have the crystal clear image I want, and I know I won’t until I have the actual memory in my head.

I just want to give birth right now. I’ll even give up my polar bear dream and do it the hard way. 😉